ARMY KIDS HAVE MANY FRIENDS

A positive outcome from the many travels and moves a military family makes are the many friends which family members make. Sometimes military children are almost forced to make friends due to having lost the friends they had during the last move. I, for example, learned to make friends easily and to this day, I make friends easily with strangers due to my many changes in addresses, states and countries which I soon grew used to. Below is a picture of my sister, Marilyn and myself with Jimmy McGuiness, a kid who lived across the street from us in Heidelberg, Germany. Jimmy's dad was a lieutenant colonel, my father, a major. Jimmy often joked with me about his father being higher ranked than mine, even if by only one grade.

ALCOHOL FACTORING IN FAMILY DYNAMICS IN THE MILITARY

Many military families suffer from the huge presence of alcohol in their families. Much drinking takes place due to the stresses of the military style of life because of frequent relocations, usually every year or two, and adjusting to different cultures wherever the family lives. New languages, climates, friends, schools, etc., impact the families' lifestyles. I know in my own family where my father was a major in the army this was so. My mother had to raise my sister and me by herself while Dad was undergoing training in different states or overseas for up to two years. She had to manage with one income as most women didn't work in the fifties. Because she often didn't have enough money to pay the bills as she depended on Dad to mail her money, we often went without even though he was an officer. When he was in Iran for two years, for example, she wrote him a letter in desperation once over this splitting of his income, and officers got paid less back in those days than they do now. also, officers' wives weren't supposed to work back then as it was a cultural thing for them not to. Today, officers get paid more;however, there are additional problems with the greater use of psychoactive medications and prevalence of street drugs in our culture, mostly used by teenagers. Today's military families face even greater stresses. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq really haven't helped the matter, any! With more fighting women and men being stationed overseas, I perceive even more problems with alcohol and drugs than before. Much of this, of course, has been hushed by the military in order to maintain respect for our fighting men and women overseas. The sign of modern times.

RESILIENT CHILDREN USUALLY HAVE AT LEAST ONE GOOD ADULT ROLE MODEL

Growing up as a military brat and dealing with changes in school, friends and homes can result in instability in one's childhood. The close relationships I developed with our maid, Eliska, my Grandpa Freddie, plus several close friends, assisted in me developing resilience while growing up. Being lonely because of our family's social isolation in Heidelberg, I often wished we could move to the army base so I would find more friends my age. I also daydreamed of moving in with our maid's family near Cologne, north of the city where we lived. However, that was not meant to be. I learned to become more independent by reading a lot during the summer when there was no one to play with my  age. We continued to live off base after we moved back to the states. Again, I had to find nonmilitary friends as most kids who lived off base were civilians. Civilian children just didn't understand the culture of the military family, the constant moving around, making new friends every few years, the authoritarianism of following Dad's orders, making one's bed according to guidelines set by the parents, turning out bedroom lights at certain hours, and never being late for dinner. Close relationships I had with our maid, Eliska, various friends and Grandpa Freddie salvaged the discomfort I often felt in not being able to meet my parents' stiff standards. It saved my self-esteem and assisted me in developing into an adult with self-confidence and poise. Below are pictures of Eliska and Grandpa Freddie.

MILITARY BRATS MAKE FRIENDS EASILY

Because of all the moving around from place to place, Brats normally make friends easily make friends easily. They are forced to. Sometimes they live off base where there aren't too many American children available to play with. Also, exposing them to different cultures assists them in making new friends. I know that I learned to be more tolerant of those from different cultures either in the United States or in foreign countries. Besides learning new languages, I learned to eat new foods and learned about different holidays which I participated in with my family and American friends. Traveling to other countries and parts of the USA is an education in itself. This was one of the positive aspects of living abroad.

Pictured above in the picture is on the left, me, my sister, and Jimmy, a lieutenant colonel's son, who lived across the street from us in Heidelberg, Germany, in the fifties.

CONNECTING WITH BOOK REVIEWERS

After reading my memoir, several book reviewers have commented that they experienced similar events in their own lives as military brats. It feels comforting that I am the only or one of the few brats who experienced alcoholism in the family (in my case my mother, and later my younger sister), physical abuse, and feelings of aloneness while relocating so many times to different states and countries. Making new friends at each new location, getting used to new schools and climates was interesting but also demanding. Often I changed locations every year, mostly every two years, though. I also attended three third grades and found each school challenging. Because of these childhood challenges, I decided never to enter the service, myself, or ever marry a serviceman. I didn't wish any future children I may have to experience the same instabilities which I did.

 

From left, myself, my sister Marilyn and our neighbor, Michael, who lived across the street from us. I was nine, my sister, five,  and Michael was 10 at the time, in Heidelberg, Germany, in front of our home.

"Interrupted Journeys: A Memoir of an Army Brat"

My memoir about my childhood as an army brat of an army major is out in soft cover and in Kindle. It's the longest work I've published so far. It is self-illustrated with photos taken from the '40's through the '60's my father took. Many of them were shot by me from slides he made.

Here is an excerpt from the opening chapter, Journeys Abroad:

Our maid Eliska gazed at me with large brown eyes. "Babala," she told me with tears streaming down her cheeks, "You will write? Right? Promise me you'll contact me after you return to the States." (Babala was how Germans pronounced my name at the time.)  Eliska was my mentor, the one I told all my problems to. Without Eliska, I don't know how I'd survive moving from school to school, changing friends and dealing with German boys who beat up American kids at the school bus stop.

I nodded my head in reply for what else could I do? I was only nine years old at the time......

Barbara's new memoir, Interrupted Journeys: A Memoir of an Army Brat is published on Kindle for $2.99. The author's experiences as an army brat in Germany, Japan and the States during the 40's through the 60's is explored. Problems military families have moving from post to post, changing friends, and schools is also highlighted and how some of these difficulties lead to dysfunctional families such as alcoholism, drug abuse and truancy at school.